Monday, June 30, 2014

Prairie Dock doesn’t typically suffer much insect predation,
so a clump of brown leaves in the Prairie Dock patch easily caught my
attention.I arrived at the affected
plants to find a hoard of Fall Webworms consuming the thick, leathery leaves.

I’m used to seeing Fall Webworms at Blue Jay Barrens, but
they have always been on trees or shrubs.There don’t seem to be many tree species that they won’t eat, so I guess
it’s not unlikely that there are many plants they would find palatable.If that’s where the female laid her eggs, the
larvae really don’t have much choice other than eat or die.

Fall Webworms are communal feeders that build a network of
webbing that covers their feeding area.New silk strands have been stretched over the midrib of the dock leaf to
offer protection to those caterpillars heading out to begin feeding on a new
section of leaf.

I think this is the webworm equivalent of painting yourself
into a corner.It won’t take long to eat
this small edge piece.Then it will be a
long trek to the other side of the leaf to find some more green.

As the name suggests, Fall Webworms are normally encountered
towards the end of summer.In Ohio, this species can
produce two generations in a summer, especially if warm temperatures arrive
early in the year and hasten the spring emergence of the adult moths.This year we seemed to shift from winter
directly into summer, with little transition.Snow fell on April 15 and that was the last time we had any freeze or
frost.By April’s end the temperatures
were in the seventies.Any species whose
development was triggered by temperature was quick to emerge.

Several of the webworms didn’t remain within the
community.Bunching together is supposed
to afford some measure of protection from predators.Maybe predators are more attracted to the
mass of potential prey items and fail to recognize these lone individuals.

When I checked back a couple of days later, the webworms
were gone.I looked around, but couldn’t
find them anywhere nearby.

All they left behind were shed skins and frass caught in the
old webbing.Fall Webworms typically
leave the webs and go to the ground to pupate, but I wouldn’t think they would
do that immediately after casting off their old skins.

The following day I found several individual webworms.These were all the next size up, a little
larger and hairier than what I had seen on the Prairie Dock.Some were on the ground and others were
munching on various plant leaves.Perhaps there is some type of dispersal that takes place prior to
pupation, so the pupae aren’t all confined to the same small area.I’ll have to pay attention when more of these
guys show up later in the summer.Maybe
I’ll learn whether or not this is typical behavior for the species.

Friday, June 27, 2014

Squirrels have always been a common yard mammal at Blue Jay
Barrens.Gray Squirrels normally
dominate, but during the past year, Fox Squirrels have risen to be masters of
the open spaces.

The Fox Squirrel, shown at left in the photo above, is a
slightly larger version of the well known Gray Squirrel.The most noticeable difference is in the
coloration.Fox Squirrels display an
abundance of rusty red colored hair on the face, legs, belly and especially on
the tail.Both species have similar
dietary preferences, so are often attracted to backyard feeders.

Fox Squirrels prefer a more open habitat than do the Gray
Squirrels.They will often leave the
shelter of a tree to forage far out into an open field.They are also not as ambitious as the Gray
Squirrel when it comes to accessing a food source.While a Gray Squirrel will make every effort
to reach a feeder full of delectable food items, the Fox Squirrel is content to
stay on the ground and take whatever comes its way.

In fact, Fox Squirrels often appear to be downright
lazy.Why bother holding up your body
when you can stretch out and take it easy?

A prone position certainly keeps the food close to the
mouth.

When the temperature begins to rise, take advantage of any
available cooling shade.The feeder
casts a perfect squirrel sized shadow.

With a little care you can stretch out and still avoid the
heat.

On a really hot afternoon, a nice shady perch above the
water pan may be a prime location.

When the air begins to cool in the evening, it’s time to
retire to the cavity exposed at the top of the dead tree stump.The Fox Squirrel is an excellent example of
how to avoid the ill effects of a hot summer day.The size of mammal populations is always
changing.It’s best to enjoy those
animals that suddenly appear in abundance.You never know how long they are going to stay or what may one day take
their place.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Two years ago I encountered this medium sized shrub in an
odd corner near the road.I couldn’t
identify it at the time, even though there was something strangely familiar
about its appearance.I left it in place
in hopes that it would someday produce flowers that would allow me to follow
through with an identification.That
finally happened this year.

These white flowers are produced by the Privet, Ligustrum
vulgare, a common landscape species that can easily escape into the wild.Outside of the garden setting, this non-native
plant becomes invasive.I think it most
likely that the original seed for this particular specimen was brought to Blue
Jay Barrens by a bird that had dined on the fruit.Since the plant became established near the
roadside, it is also possible that fruit or seed traveled by car or truck and disembarked
here as the vehicle passed on the road.

As soon as I saw the plant name it occurred to me why the
plant seemed so familiar.Privet is
easily shaped by pruning and is commonly planted in rows to create a formal
hedge.My grandfather once had hundreds
of feet of privet hedge surrounding his yard and when he could no longer handle
the job, I was drafted to be his hedge trimming assistant.Being the assistant meant that I wielded the
huge double edged electric trimmers while Grandpa sat in the shade calling out
directions.The first thing he told me
was to keep the trimmers away from the cord, but the three 100 foot sections of
extension cord bringing power to the trimmers were already weighted by about 25
pounds of multi-colored electrical tape protecting splices where the cord had
previously been severed.In fact, he cut
through the cord while showing me the proper way to handle the trimmers.After all of the agonizing hours I spent
trimming that hedge, you would have thought I’d recognize that leaf right off.

Of course, properly trimmed hedges never get the chance to
flower.I doubt that even smiley faced
flowers would have made the trimming job any easier.

It wasn’t unhappy childhood memories that made me cut down
the Privet.The best time to eliminate
an invasive species is when the first one shows up on the property.Minutes after being added to the Blue Jay
Barrens plant list, the shrub was cut and sprayed.The name stays on the list, but there is a
notation that the plant is now considered to be extirpated from the
property.I’m always happy to add
another species to the plant list and I’m thrilled to eliminate an invasive
species, so discovery of this plant provided multiple pleasures.

I was trying to do a growth ring count to determine
approximately how long ago this specimen arrived here.As is sometimes the case with shrubs,
multiple rings can appear that are not related to annual growth cycles.My count was inconclusive.My estimate places the arrival of the
original seed to be somewhere between several and many years ago.

I hope you don’t think that I’m one of those people who
would take the opportunity to use a photo like this as the last of a sequence
and caption it with a tired old pun like THE END.You’ll not see that here.

Monday, June 23, 2014

My list of plant species found naturally growing at Blue Jay
Barrens continues to expand.The latest
addition to the list, Number 535, is Hairy Wingstem, Verbesina helianthoides, a
native species uncommon in Ohio.This brings the number of native species up
to 440 which is about 25 percent of all native plant species found in the state
of Ohio. That's not bad for a property of just over 100 acres in size.

I’ve seen Hairy Wingstem at other sites in Ohio and it was growing in conditions
identical to what is shown here.Open
woodlands on dry soils seems to be its preferred habitat.I’ve long believed that the plant should be
found on this property.It has just
taken me this long to find it.

There are several possible reasons why I failed to notice
the plant before now.One is the fact
that the related species Wingstem, Verbesina alternifolia, is common over the
entire property and shaded individuals of that species are more diminutive and
come close to resembling the Hairy species.A cursory glance at this winged stem might cause a person to call it a
Wingstem, especially since stunted plants of the standard Wingstem are within
100 feet in all directions of this site.Close examination of the Hairy Wingstem does confirm that it is hairier
than its relative.

Leaves, besides being a slightly different shape, also have
more hair.The most noticeable
difference is the feel of the leaf as you rub it between thumb and finger.Hairy Wingstem is soft and pliable, while
Wingstem is rough and stiff.

Hairy Wingstem flowers have more petals and fewer flower
heads than the standard Wingstem species.The heads resemble several other species of yellow woodland sunflowers,
so are sometimes overlooked on that account.

Flower heads are attached to short stalks and crowd together
at the top of the plant.It gives the
impression that the plant has suffered some injury or disease that resulted in
an unsightly plant deformity.

There are plenty of young plants coming on.Tree loss has caused the canopy in this
section of the woods to open more during the last 10 years. I’m wondering if the plants have been stunted
by lack of light and just in the last few years have begun to grow to their
full potential.I guess the reason for
my inability to find the plants until now is not as important as the fact that
the plants are here.I counted over 100
Hairy Wingstem plants and at least 30 of those are currently flowering.It’ll be fun to watch the changes in this
patch over the next few years.

Friday, June 20, 2014

When managing land for biological systems, there are many
factors over which you have no control.Some of these have an enormous influence over your success.A prime example is the weather.Yesterday evening, Blue Jay Barrens was
visited by a thunderstorm exhibiting high wind, heavy rain and hail.Physical evidence of the storm’s passing was
abundant.Downed tree limbs, broken
plant stalks and flooding were found everywhere.What I observed from the relative safety of
the front porch, was the toppling of the milkweeds.It all began with the simultaneous arrival of
howling straight line winds and a heavy downpour of rain that sent an
impressive wave of water spray breaking over the eves.

Wind and rain subsided slightly as a flurry of hailstones
joined the mix.

Milkweeds near the water garden, heavy with rain and
battered by hail, began to give way before the wind.

As the hail thinned, rain increased in intensity.Several milkweeds have remained upright.At this point, I was thinking the worst of
the storm had passed.

I was wrong.Heavy
rain continued, hail resumed and the wind returned with a roar loud enough to
send me running to the other side of the house to see if anything dangerous was
headed in my direction.When I returned to
the porch 20 seconds later, the wind was driving straight down and pushing
spray into the porch and onto the ceiling.

We went from hurricane like conditions to a light summer
shower in just a few seconds.I watched
the back end of the storm thrash the woods on the hill across the road and then
it was gone.Amazingly, some milkweeds
are still standing.

Violent summer weather may be uncontrollable, but that
doesn’t mean it’s unpredictable or unexpected.The milkweeds around the water garden, as well as many out in the
fields, get flattened every year.Younger specimens can almost bring themselves back upright after a
storm, while those at this stage will gradually reorient the top of the plant
so the flowers are held up for insect visitors.Their susceptibility to storm damage does not diminish their importance
as a valuable part of the natural ecosystem.

The milkweed stalks have not broken at the base and can be
returned to an upright position if stakes are provided for support.Since these are growing right outside the
front door, I’ll do my best to return them to their proper orientation.My wife claims that they remind her of
Triffids lurking in wait near the porch and I don’t want them to appear as
though they are reaching out to her.

The leaves will carry their hail damage for the rest of the
season.The milkweeds colonized the
water garden flower beds on their own several years ago.I left them alone to grow and increase their
numbers because this patch seemed to be a preferred egg laying site of the
Monarch butterfly.Monarch caterpillars
have always been present on these plants by this date in past years and
evidence of their feeding should be present on the leaves right along with the
hail damage.This year I have yet to see
my first Monarch.Plenty of other
insects utilize the milkweed, but it just doesn’t seem right without the
Monarchs.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Eastern Moles tunneled extensively through my vegetable
garden during this past winter.They are
no longer active and the tunnels they left behind periodically collapse to
provide an entrance to the underground labyrinth.A fresh opening at the end of one of my
garden beds showed signs of movement inside, so I went to investigate.

The color matched the surrounding soil, but this was no lump
of dirt.An American Toad was using the
mole tunnel as a daytime retreat.

As I looked in at the toad, it turned and peered back at
me.Toads have always been a favorite of
mine.When I was nine years old, my best
friend through the summer was a toad.He
lived in a shaded pen in the flower bed and I took him out every day to hunt
for food.As I turned stones or dug
through the soil, he would climb over my fingers in an effort to be right up
front when a tasty morsel was unearthed.When school began in the fall, I just removed the walls of his pen and
left him to forage on his own.

A toad will eat just about any slow moving creature small
enough to fit in its mouth.I dropped a
couple of earthworms down the hole for this guy.

It was just too difficult to get a good shot of the toad
eating while it was down in the mole tunnel.The toad ate every worm I sent its way, but the best view I got was of
the toad with a worm end sticking from its mouth.

I tried holding the worm at the tunnel entrance and the toad
obligingly came out to accept the offering.

The toad was just too fast for me.The worm was taken and swallowed before my
camera could react.I think the toad got
full, because after a few worms, it crawled on down the tunnel and
disappeared.

The exciting thing about this toad discovery is the fact
that the toad was within 120 feet of my toad pool.Built specifically for use by breeding toads,
the toad pool has yet to receive its first toad egg.To be fair, the pool has only been in
existence for two breeding seasons.With
toad numbers on the decline at Blue Jay Barrens, I am hopeful that the addition
of suitable breeding sites will reverse that trend and result in toad
encounters once again being a common occurrence.

Wood Frogs have demonstrated that the toad pool provides
adequate food and water to satisfy the needs of tadpoles through their
development to small frogs.Maybe it
will be next year that the toads prove that the toad pool idea was properly
conceived and executed.The pool has
attracted a wide variety of wildlife, but until the toads arrive, I’ll have to
consider the project to be a failure.

Monday, June 16, 2014

The blooms of my favorite milkweed are quickly fading from
the prairie landscape.Spider Milkweed,
Asclepias viridis, is an early season bloomer that generally ends its flowering
period before the first day of summer.Not only does this plant produce an amazingly interesting flower, it
also is a focus of activity for a variety of animal species.It’s impossible to look closely at these
flowers without some small creature looking back.

The pale green flowers are impossible to miss.If Spider Milkweed is in the mix, it will
certainly be noticed.

Having a multitude of insect visitors means a quick
pollination.Seed pods soon replace
flowers.By mid summer, seeds will fly
and the plant will begin to enter its dormancy.

Among its many insect visitors, Spider Milkweed supports the
larvae of the state endangered Unexpected Tiger Moth, Cycnia inopinatus.The orange bodied larvae are easy to see
against the green of the plant.

The Unexpected Tiger Moth is double brooded in southern Ohio and is generally
associated with Butterfly Weed, Asclepias tuberosa.The body color of the larva tends to blend
with the orange flowers of the Butterfly Weed and provide some protective
camouflage.That strategy doesn’t work
on the Spider Milkweed.Many insect
species that feed on milkweed develop toxicity by consuming and processing the
toxic compounds in the plant.Orange
coloration is a common trait shared by these insects and indicates to predators
that the insect is best left alone.That
may help this colorful larva to avoid predation.

I assume that the adult moth lays its eggs on the flower
buds of the Spider Milkweed.Signs of
feeding on the flowers is the first clue that Unexpected Tiger Moth larvae are
on the plant.As the larvae grow, they
move on to feed on the leaves.

During the last few years, I have noticed that the first
brood of the Unexpected Tiger Moth utilizes Spider Milkweed and the second
brood uses Butterfly Weed. That means it is necessary to have an adequate
population of both milkweed species in order to have a healthy population of
moths.Currently at Blue Jay Barrens,
Butterfly Weed is much more common than Spider Milkweed and the two species
grow in different areas.I am now
attempting to establish Spider Milkweed populations in closer proximity to the
Butterfly Weed to see if this increases the numbers of Unexpected Tiger
Moths.

Part of that activity will take place in my garden where
this clump of Butterfly Weed has a history of hosting second brood Unexpected
Tiger Moths.It takes two or three years
for a Spider Milkweed plant to reach flowering stage, so it will be a while
before I know if my plan is successful.I’m hopeful that I will eventually see this effort benefit the
moth.Even if it doesn’t, it will be
nice to have more Spider Milkweeds growing in the fields.

ABOUT BLUE JAY BARRENS

Located in the Bluegrass region of Southern Ohio, Blue Jay Barrens contains excellent xeric habitat inhabited by a wide variety of rare native plant and animal species. Since 1985, this private property has been managed to improve the integrity of the special ecosystems found here. This blog provides information on the current activities at Blue Jay Barrens.

RESPONSE TO COMMON QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS BLOG

It’s my intent to share information on current events at Blue Jay Barrens. Unless otherwise noted in the text, all photos were taken by me at Blue Jay Barrens.

Plant scientific names are from Gleason and Cronquist 1991. I realize that some changes in preferred nomenclature have occurred, but this is the principle reference I have been using for flora identification. Knowing this, I believe most people can figure out just what plant I’m talking about.

My discussions of flora and fauna are not intended to be a complete life history. There are plenty of good references for this type of information. I am discussing my personal experiences with plants and animals on this specific property. Any other information I may provide is intended to help you understand the significance of my observations.

MY 3 FAVORITE NATURE BOOKS:

1- Of Mosquitoes, Moths and Mice, by C Brooke Worth.2- Mosquito Safari: A Naturalist in Southern Africa, by C Brooke Worth.3- A Naturalist in Trinidad, by C Brooke Worth.

MY 3 FAVORITE FICTION BOOKS:

1- The Witches of Karres by James H Schmitz2- The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham3- The Windhover Tapes (1st 3 volumes) by Warren Norwood

MY 3 FAVORITE MOVIES:

1- Vanishing Point 1971 with Barry Newman2- Flim Flam Man 1967 with George C Scott - also like the book by Guy Owens3- The Lathe Of Heaven 1979 with Bruce Davison - also like the book by Ursula K LeGuin

MY 3 FAVORITE TV SHOWS:

1- The Prisoner with Patrick McGoohan2- Fawlty Towers with John Cleese3- Kolchak: The Night Stalker with Darren McGavin